The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

‘No. That’s the whole point. That’s the way he was. He wanted others to do things, so that he could watch.’

The Cotard Delusion is a very rare form of schizophrenia. It is also called the Corpse Syndrome. A person with this condition would feel as if he were a living corpse, that he was rotting inside, that he was actually dead and hence eternal. It is a strange philosophical state, but also an extreme case of depression, and the only reason the corpse d

I don’t want to see beauty. I am just another boy in Madras who wants to escape to America.’

She walks towards him, her head bent, and when she raises her eyes they look with the incurable contempt that all Tamil maids have for men who are not film stars.

‘Which Mathew? The world is full of Mathews. There are more Mathews than Anthonys. I wonder why.’

It seems odd to him that other men, the simple men, men who are not writers, they too can make their women laugh, make them glow.

“Language was created by nature to guard its secrets, not to reveal them. We are trapped in language. Even thought has become language. That is what nature wants, Sai. It has given us language because it has hidden the truth somewhere else.”’

What is this world, exactly? Thoma wonders. A man slaps a girl’s arse, she walks on as if nothing has happened. Then the man gets hit by a coconut thrown by a weird woman, and he walks away without even turning back.

‘Because to fool a person, it appears, you have to first fool yourself. That is at the heart of all human influences.